Butler Is One of His Favorite Things

PUBLISHED ON Jan 02 2017

The last time Ben Davis sang onstage in Indianapolis, it was as a member of the Butler Chorale. The next time will be January 10-15 at the Murat Theatre, where he will portray Captain Georg von Trapp in the national touring company of The Sound of Music.

Davis grew up in Indianapolis, attended Butler in the mid-1990s as a voice major, and credits Jordan College of the Arts faculty such as Steven Stolen with preparing him for a career that has included Broadway roles in Les Miserables and A Little Night Music, and a 2003 Tony Honor for Excellence for his work in Baz Luhrmann’s production of the opera La Boheme.

“I was not a serious student,” he said. “I wasn’t one of those people who usually gravitates toward Butler. Butler is an incredibly well-respected university. But I had an incredible support team from Butler that helped me as much as they could and gave me a foundation upon which I could build this career. I can honestly say that if it weren’t for my two years at Butler, I wouldn’t be here.”

After leaving Butler, Davis went to work at a financial brokerage firm in Indianapolis. His mother bought him a Chicago trade paper where he saw an audition for The Phantom of the Opera. He tried out but didn’t hear anything. Six months later, he was invited to audition for Les Mis in New York. Again, the phone went silent for a time.

When the call finally came, the producers said they wanted him for the ensemble role Feuilly. But they hadn’t heard how high he could sing, and they needed him to be able to hit a high A. They asked him to get on the phone with the music director.

“I was so naïve and so green that I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’” he remembered. “The good part is that this was before Facetime, so I could make any face and contortion to get the note out.”

He hit the note and got the part.

He was 21 when he was cast, 22 when he started a 3½-year run in the national touring company. On September 10, 2001, he joined the Broadway production as Enjolras.

That led to La Boheme, an opera on Broadway in Italian, for which he and the other principals (who were double and triple cast) won the Tony. When that closed, he got cast immediately in Thoroughly Modern Millie opposite Sutton Foster, with whom he had done Les Mis.

After that, he moved to Los Angeles for three years of theatre and TV work before heading to London to be in a film version of the opera The Magic Flute directed by Kenneth Branagh and recorded at Abbey Road Studios. Then it was back to New York for the first revival of Les Mis (he played Javert), two years on the road in Spamalot (directed by Mike Nichols), time in A Little Night Music (which starred Elaine Strich and Bernadette Peters) and concert performances of Kurt Weill’s Knickerbocker Holiday opposite Kelli O’Hara and Victor Garber.

Davis also performed in The Sound of Music in Nashville and at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. In this production, he gives von Trapp a new spin.

“It’s more about just making him human,” he said. “I think over time the role has become so stoic and so one-note, and that’s not who we are as human beings. It’s understanding that there’s a reason for his sullenness and the gray cloud hanging over him, and there’s a reason he needs that discipline in his children and he’s gone back to his military days of discipline. So it’s about exploring those reasons and finding when that changes during the show, why it changes and how he reacts to that.”

And he’s excited to get to do this in front of family and friends.

“In 20 years of doing this, I’ve never played Indianapolis,” Davis said. “This is my first time. I’m so excited, I can’t begin to tell you.”

Media contact:
Marc Allan
mallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822

Butler Is One of His Favorite Things

"I can honestly say that if it weren’t for my two years at Butler, I wouldn’t be here.”

Butler Alumna Receives $3.9 Million to Expand Literacy Program

BY Hayley Ross ’17

PUBLISHED ON Nov 28 2016

In September, the United States Department of Education awarded more than $26 million in grants to develop and improve high-quality literacy programs in high-needs school. One of the largest awards went to a Butler alumna.

Michelle (Skinner) Brown ’09 will receive $3.9 million over two years to help fund and expand her company, CommonLit Inc., a completely free, online compilation of literary and teaching resources that was created to try to close the “secondary literacy gap.”

“Teachers, parents, anyone can go on the site and make measurable improvements,” Brown said. “That is the overall goal.”

Brown came to Butler from New Braunfels, Texas, to study classical ballet. She said she never stopped loving ballet. “I just decided that I didn't want it to be my profession.”

“The late Dr. Marshall Gregory was the person in the Butler English Department who inspired me to change my major to English,” she said. “His classes made me believe in the power of literature to change people's minds. In fact, Dr. G ended up writing my letter of recommendation for Teach for America, which is what brought me to the education sector.”

After graduating Butler, she joined Teach for America and taught at a school in the Mississippi Delta for two years. It was a highly impoverished and extremely rural, and it was there that she got the “teaching bug.”

“Ultimately, what I am doing now directly correlates to teaching there,” she said. “CommonLit was born out of my experience in the classroom.”

She left and began to teach in a charter school in Boston. She noticed the vast differences in teaching tools between the two schools, and it pushed her to go to Harvard for her Master’s in Education Policy and Management.

“It kind of made me angry that the resources that I had in Boston weren’t available to me in Mississippi,” Brown said.

The idea for CommonLit formed when she told her Harvard academic advisor, Ronald Ferguson, that her plan was to write a book on literary instruction.

“He told me that wasn't enough,” she said. “He pushed me to have a bigger vision of what I could do.”

She started with the curriculum itself around three years ago, never dreaming of what it could accomplish. Today, CommonLit is reaching over 12,000 schools nationwide and gains more than 3,000 new users every day.

“By the end of the year I want to reach around 1 million students,” Brown said. “And we are definitely on track to exceed that number.”

CommonLit has professional high-performing teachers who create all of the lessons on the site, which include new articles, poems, short stories, and historical documents. The works themselves are donated by authors and publishers that support CommonLit’s mission of improving literacy for vulnerable populations.

“We have contact partners, non-profit, that give us permission to integrate their writing into our collection,” she said.

With the money from the federal grant, Brown said she wants to focus on hiring new people and making the website more visible—not only to places that don’t usually have access to these resources, but to people who may have a disability that makes the website hard to understand.

“We are going to focus on high poverty and rural schools,” she said. “We are also focusing on reading instruction. We are learning to make the site more accessible to those with reading issues, visual impairment, and those with English not as their first language.”

Aaron Hurt '08 Named 30 Under 30 Among Venue Managers

BY

PUBLISHED ON Jun 10 2016

Aaron Hurt ’08, the Director of Operations for the Butler Arts Center, has been selected as one of the International Association of Venue Managers Foundation (IAVM)’s 30 Under 30, which recognizes emerging leaders in the venue-management industry.

Hurt has been in event and venue management since 2009 with a variety of venues and ensembles and has worked with artists including Marvin Hamlisch, Sylvia McNair, Josh Radnor, and Allen Toussaint. In addition to working for the Arts Center, he teaches a seminar on Venue Management for Butler’s Arts Administration program.

“I’m humbled to be selected as one of IAVM’s 30 Under 30 recipients,” Hurt said. “Managing multiple venues, like we do at Butler Arts Center, is always presenting new, exciting challenges, and I’m truly privileged to have such a fun career where I’m able to solve those challenges every day. It’s quite an honor to have IAVM recognize my work in the field thus far, and I’m thankful for their support and recognition.”

The 30 Under 30 Class of 2016 will convene at VenueConnect, IAVM’s annual conference and trade show, July 23-26, in Minneapolis. They will also be provided opportunities for continued education for professional growth in the venue industry to help them become better, more productive employees.

Award recipients receive full complimentary registration to the conference, an $850 travel stipend, and a one-year complimentary Young Professional IAVM Membership. They also will be recognized at the Venue Industry Awards Luncheon at VenueConnect on Monday, July 25.

The Butler Arts Center includes Clowes Memorial Hall, the Schrott Center for the Arts, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall, and the Black Box Theatre in Lilly Hall.

Zotec Partners Continues Sponsorship With Butler Athletics

BY

PUBLISHED ON Aug 08 2017

Zotec Partners announced on August 14 that it will continue a multi-year sponsorship agreement with Butler University’s Athletics Department that allows the company's logo to be displayed alongside the University’s logo on the Hinkle Fieldhouse court.

T. Scott Law, President and CEO of Zotec Partners, notes that the sponsorship, which began in 2011, means much more than just advertising the Zotec Partners brand.

“To us, it is a symbol of our Butler pride and support for the Indianapolis community at large, which is home to 350 Zotec employees,” he said.

As a former student-athlete, Law believes it is important to support the University and its sports teams that will directly benefit from the sponsorship commitment. “I am delighted we can honor the drive, dedication, and teamwork of Butler’s student-athletes,” he adds. “The University’s students, alumni, faculty, and staff are an important part of our company’s history and future, and it is our privilege to support them.”

For more than eight decades, Hinkle Fieldhouse has upheld a reputation as one of the nation’s great sports arenas. The classic facility was constructed in 1928 and has withstood the test of time, maintaining the splendor, character, and atmosphere that made it one of the nation’s most famous basketball arenas in a state that is practically synonymous with the sport. Today, Butler men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and volleyball teams play their home games at Hinkle.

“We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Zotec. Scott Law knows that putting together a great team—as he has at Zotec—takes commitment and support from many participants,” said Athletic Director Barry Collier. “Zotec’s continued, unwavering support greatly benefits our student-athletes, Butler University, and the Indianapolis community.”

In addition to supporting Butler Athletics, Zotec has a long relationship with the Lacy School of Business through the Zotec Business Competition, a competition for sophomore business students involved in the Real Business Experience (RBE) practicum course.

Butler President James M. Danko said the University deeply appreciates the devotion to Butler by Scott and Zotec Partners. “We are not only grateful for their financial contribution, but for their partnership to impact the quality of the student experience at Butler.”